It is OK if this makes you laugh at or think less of me

Each year after Christmas my family makes the 12-13 hour drive from Kalamazoo back to our hometown. This trip is becoming increasingly more difficult now that a 19 month old baby girl is in the picture.

This year, I came up with a brilliant solution. It would only cost $177.00 to get a direct flight for Jennie and Piper out of Chicago on Christmas night. My sons and I would make the drive on our own.

As Jennie, Piper and I prepared to hit the road on Christmas day, we received a text from Southwest Airlines indicating that the 9:05pm flight from Chicago to Albany would be delayed by 45 minutes

My computer like brain quickly calculated that if we leave at 6:15 Eastern Standard Time that we would easily arrive no later than 8:15 Central Standard Time (or 9:15 Eastern Standard Time). That would allow no less than a comfortable 90 minute buffer between our arrival and takeoff.

The weather proved messy, the driving was tricky and the traffic for a Christmas evening was unexpectedly heavy.

Then an unforeseen twist:  Southwest texted again to share "good news". The flight would only be delayed by five minutes and would now take off at 9:10pm. Our 90 minute buffer was now no better than a 50 minute buffer. We really began to wonder if we would make it on time.

I, then, almost committed a major gaff. There are two airports in Chicago and I began heading toward the airport NOT programmed into my smart phone's GPS. Jennie warned me before I made what would have been a fateful wrong turn.

Finally, we arrived at our destination. However there were five different terminals and finding Southwest seemed an exercise in futility. At 8:25 Central time (45 minutes before the flight's scheduled departure), I swallowed my pride, rolled down my window and asked some airport staff people where I could find Southwest. One cranky worker said, "We're off the clock!" A kinder, gentler employee simply paused, gulped and stated, "Southwest is at Midway Airport. This is O'Hare Airport.

Somehow, I refrained from teaching Piper any number of the swear words I was mentally directing toward myself. 

It was over. There was no way to get Jennie and Piper to Midway on time. We had just spent three hours hurrying to the wrong airport and, because the weather took a turn for the worse, it took us an additional four hours to get back to our home in Michigan.  

Today, the day after Christmas, all five us us will start our 13 hour trek to Albany, NY.

Thanks God there are not two such cities because history proves that I would end up in the wrong one.

Happy New Year!